Lies
by pharo
Summary: Sydney Bristow's world is crumbling.


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Lies

Author: Pharo

Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Touchstone, and ABC.

Summary: Sydney Bristow's world is crumbling.

Spoilers: Up to and including "The Box (I)".

Feedback: pharo@onebox.com

'_it was clear to all of us, we kept this hat of broken dreams, and we pulled them out when we needed them around…please give me direction, I think the hurt set in and I don't feel nothing…_' –Matchbox Twenty, '_Kody_'

If I don't get out of here right now, I'm going to lose it. Right now, I feel like screaming and throwing things---a paperweight, a pen, the folder Vaughn has in his hand, anything to stop my father from talking. 

"Sydney, I know this is hard. It was hard for me too…"

"Don't," I warn, somehow managing not to scream.

He has the audacity to compare himself to _me_. I don't know how he can just stand there and tell me all this with that straight face on---void of any emotion whatsoever while I'm sitting here trying so hard to stop the stinging in my eyes. 

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not…

"She fooled me, too. I thought she---"

"Stop it," I say a little louder than last time.

Maybe I can lunge at him with a stapler or something. I get up and look around, but can't find one anywhere on the table. I want to run out of here, but he's standing in front of the door now. I wish he would just move…

"She lied. She didn't care about---"

"Stop it!" I shout. 

"Every---"

"Shut up!" I shout, hoping that if I say it loud enough it'll get the fact across to him that I don't want to hear this. 

"She lied, Sydney. Everything---"

I put my hands over my ears. He can't just throw around words like 'everything'. He can't just do that. There is no 'everything'. If he finishes that sentence, then…then all that I know about her…all that she was…

"My mother was a good person. She cared. She loved me. She loved me. She loved me…"

"No, Sydney, she didn't," his voice pierces through my chant. 

Oh God. Why did he have to say that? Is he trying to kill me.

"I thought she cared, too, Sydney. But she didn't."

Wasn't it bad enough that he said it the first time? Did he have to repeat it?

"I know what you're going through…"

I close my eyes and feel myself fall back on to the chair. My whole world is crumbling and he's telling me that he _understands_. Understands! What a concept! If he understood even half of what I was feeling, he wouldn't have said it. God, it feels like my heart is slowly breaking. It's like the sound of ice cracking gradually. I open my eyes and feel myself dying. 

I'm dying and all these stuffy CIA people are looking at me like my reaction to this heart-wrenching news is wrong somehow. I wish I could just…

"It'll be ok, Sydney," my father is saying.

No, it won't. It'll never be ok again. It'll never even be close to 'ok'.

"How could you do this to me, Dad? How can you just stand here and tell me that my mother---_my mother_, the person whose memory has gotten me through all this---is a lie? How?"

"Sydney, I had to tell you the truth."

"Great time to start, Dad," I say bitterly. "Damn it, Dad, you couldn't even bring yourself to tell me alone! If you cared so much, Dad…if you knew me at all---"

I look around me and realize that I'm screaming on the top of my lungs at him. And suddenly, it feels like I can't breathe. 

"I can't do this."

I practically jump out my chair, push past him, and run out of the room. I run down the hall and stop at a window to look out. I press my forehead against the cool window and close my eyes. Maybe the world can go away for just a little while. That's not asking for much when your life has been shaken like that, is it? Now, I know how Danny felt when I told him about me. 

"Sydney?"

"Vaughn." 

For the first time, I remember that his world has been tumbled too. Up until now, I didn't even think about what he was going through.

"Are you ok?" I ask, opening my eyes and turning my head to look at him.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"You know, you don't have to say you're ok," I say with a small smile.

He leans against the wall and sighs.

"Yeah, I know, but it's not as bad as you'd think. I mean, it's bad, but I can deal with it. He's been dead for all these years; now I just know who did it."

"My mother," I say and I can feel the tears well up in my eyes again.

"Yeah," he says softly.

"I'm sorry for putting you in this position. If I had the slightest clue that this was going to happen, well, you know."

"Syd, don't worry about me," he says with a small smile. "Just take care of yourself. Do you need a ride?"

"Thanks, but I brought my car," I tell him as we start down the elevator to the parking lot. 

Yeah. Father and daughter try to rid the world of people like the mother, who happened to be a killer.

At the parking lot, I'm about to get into my car, when he calls out, "Remember, if you ever need me, you've got my number."

"I will," I say with a smile as I drive away.

***

The first thing I do when I get home is pull out the 'Mom-box'---the things that made me think so much of my mother. Everything that is a lie, sitting in there. If only I knew how many times I looked into that little box and wished with all my heart that she was alive.

As I look at the box once more, I think back to what Vaughn said in the elevator.

__

"Syd?"

"Yeah."

"I know you don't want to hear this, but, give your dad a chance. He isn't a bad guy or anything; he's just scared, really. Years of not really knowing your daughter and then the truth explodes---not really what families are made of."

Yeah, he's right. All this time, I've been thinking that my father is the big bad when really it was my mother. I fling item after item into the fireplace, letting go of the little that I had held on to of my mother. 


End file.
